Calling the War
by C. Jordan
Summary: Aizen’s take on the Winter War, through his rose-colored contact lenses. Shameless lyric-twisting


Aizen strides into the semi-dark makeshift War Room outside 'Karakura Town' where a CNN camera crew has set up in front of a large Risk board backdrop, center stage.

He looks to the Cameraman, prop master, anyone who will return his attention. "Hey! How's the hair? The lighting? How good do I look?"

A make-up girl nods, gives him a thumbs-up. "Good to go, AssOn-san."

"Ai-zen. Get it right." Aizen smiles bigger, stands akimbo in his Las Noches garb. "Are we rolling?"

A tired-looking Cameraman glances around for the director, who's nowhere to be seen. Instead he glances at the sound man, and points to Aizen with a "_five-four-three-two-go"_ countdown. Cameras roll.

"Cue the playback!"

The music to _One Night in Bangkok_ comes up.

A spotlight shines on Aizen. He beams, hands out stretched, gesturing to the Karakura prop behind him with a flourish. "Bankai! Oriental setting and the city don't know that the city is getting the crème de la crème of the East worlds in a show with everything but Yul Brynner." He scowls, looking to one of the barriers of the Town. "But we do have Ikkaku."

At the corner of Town, Ikkaku stands poised with bo raised in all his shiny, bald warrior glory.

Aizen shakes his head. "Poser," he mutters, then smiles back into the camera. "Time flies -- doesn't seem a minute since the hot springs had that Kurosaki boy in it. All --"

Ichigo jumps up from a darkened offstage holding area, right. "Hey! I was getting all healed up!" Gin steps out of the shadows and yanks him off camera.

Aizen frowns, looks back to the camera, smiles. "All change. Don't you know that when you play at this level there's no ordinary venue? It's Tokyo, or Soul Society, or Las Noches, or, or this place!"

He waits a beat, the music continues, the Cameraman and Aizen look around.

Aizen's smile drops. "Where's my back-up chorus?"

Cameraman shrugs. "Don't know. Improvise."

Gin shoves Orihime, dressed in a gold and white harem costume, on stage. A spotlight catches her as she looks back at the camera, expression frozen, a script in her hands.

"Go!" yells the Cameraman.

She reads from the script. "One night with Aizen and the world's your oyster. The bars are temples but the pearls ain't' free," she reads methodically. "You'll find --"

Aizen goes to her and snatches the script from her hands. "With feeling, sweetheart. How many times do I have to tell you? Now, again!"

He hands back the script, sidles back to his place before the backdrop.

Orihime clears her throat. Reading more cheerily: "You'll find a god in every golden cloister and if you're lucky then the god's a she." Toddler Nell scoots up to her. "I can feel an angel sliding up to me."

"Very good. Now get off stage," Aizen says to them, turns back to the camera, the spotlight moving to him. "One town's very like another when your head's down over your minions, brother." He sighs. "It's a drag, it's a bore, it's really such a pity to be sorting out Espada, not enjoying the city."

Gin steps out of the shadows, throws a hand gesture to the backdrop. "Whaddya mean? Ya seen one crowded, polluted, stinking town --"

Aizen laughs. "Tea, girls, warm and sweet, Gin. Remember that one he had set up in the Prisoner Suite?"

Offstage, Orihime shouts: "Hey! Get Thai'd! You're talking about a captive whose every move was of the purest passive! I give my kicks above the waistline, sunshine!"

"Ooh, now _that's_ the feeling I was looking for. Remember that for your next line. _Sunshine_, I like that." Aizen stares back at the camera for a few seconds, then whips out his own script from a pocket and consults it. "Orihime! You're up! Quick, before we lose the music!"

Gin shoves Orihime back onto the stage. She glances at her script, finds her spot. "One night with Aizen makes ... this _really_ doesn't apply to me, Ichimaru-sama. I think it's your line."

Gin stands beside her and looks at the script. "Read it anyway. I'm not saying _that_."

"Weakling," she huffs, puts one hand on a hip, reading with no emotion. "...a hard man humble. Not much between despair and ecstasy. One night -- never mind -- and the tough guys tumble. Can't be too careful with your cup of tea."

Gin looks over her shoulder. "That's _company_."

"Same thing." She reads begrudgingly: "I can feel the devil walking next to me." Turns to Gin. "That must be you."

Aizen clears his throat as the spotlight winds around to him, center stage. "Karakura's gonna be the witness to the ultimate test of cerebral fitness. This grips me more than would a muddy old river or reclining Buddha. And thank -- well, _me_ -- I'm only watching the game -- controlling it." He makes little marionette-working movements with his hands, glancing to where the rest of the Soul Society captains and vice-captains are lined up along the backdrop, just out of sight in the dark, stage right.

"I don't see you guys waging the kind of game I'm contemplating. I'll have you watch, I even invite you, but the methods I use will not amuse you," he tells them, sighing. "So you better go back to your bars, your temples, your massage parlors --"

Hisagi, Renji, Zaraki, Shunsui, and Matsumoto start to leave the stage.

"Get back here!" Yamamoto shrieks at them, shaking his walking stick. They shuffle back into line.

Aizen grins as Orihime crosses the stage to him, balling the script in her hands. He extends a hand to her. "You'll find a god in every golden cloister, a little flesh, a little mystery. I can feel an angel sliding up to me..."

Orihime stops, screeches in disgust, and throws the script at him, storms off, stage left.

For a moment the music continues, Aizen thumbs through his script. "That's not in here!" he shouts at her.

The Cameraman rolls his eyes, waves to the sound man. "Lose the playback. That's it! Wrap up!"

Aizen shakes his head as the music halts. "I'm not done yet!"

The Cameraman makes a cutting motion to the lighting man; the spotlight falls away from Aizen. The Cameraman turns to the make-up girl. "I hope these guys whoop his ass."

"Wait!" Aizen screams in the dark.

"We could end this now," Ichigo says, now stage right, from the pack of shinigami. "Anyone game?"

Yamamoto hands his stick to Nanao. "Hold this..."


End file.
